Gilles Tran nous apporta ses lumieres ainsi en ce 2004-09-24 08:52... :


>news:web.415343ee95cfa299dd1d87f30@news.povray.org...
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>>I was sent this image to identify, but I can't tell what it is.
>>Can anyone here tell what it is. The words look like they might be
>>French.
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>Ok, let's do some sleuthing here. My first guess is that it's a nautical or
>aeronautical instrument. In fact, the "up" and "down" markings seem to
>indicate some sort of early flight instrument.
>Now, the writing around the case isn't very legible, but the last word looks
>like "Derrien". It's a French surname, so it could very well be the maker's
>name.
>Now let's turn to Google: Derrien + instruments turns up a bunch of
>unrelated links but this one is interesting:
>http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/history/websters/d.htm
>Bingo! Derrien was a sextant maker and was associated with Le Prieur... and
>"Le Prieur" can also be read on the instrument just before Derrien! So it
>looks like the full name of the makers was Le Prieur-Derrien.
>Now, who was Le Prieur? He was a naval officer and a rather intersting
>fellow http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/le_prieur.html
>He's credited with several feats and inventions: first man to fly (in a
>glider) in Japan, invention of the first air-to-air combat rocket, of an
>early scuba system and of various nautical and flight instruments, including
>an early flight drift metre called a "navigraphe". This system can be seen
>somewhere on this (famous) flight panel (Maurice Bellonte's navigator
>panel), though it's impossible to know if it's the one in your image.
>http://storage.mfa.free.fr/histpoint3uk.html
>Therefore my guess would be a Le Prieur navigraph engineered by Derrien, and
>used from 1925 onwards on French-made planes. Of course, Le Prieur created
>other instruments (he died in 1963), so it could be something else...
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>G.
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Nice detective work!
I'd make a quess about the function of this instrument: I think it's 
similar to the moderns artificial horizon on today's planes: it shows if 
the plane is rising, diving or banking.

Alain

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